F*ck you Woolworths

[madpierre06]

Remember back when self-serve petrol pumps started popping up? Or maybe not - it was in the 70's, and half the world's population weren't even a gleam in their father's eye then.

Anyway, I digress.To get folk to use them, they offered self-served fuel at a discount. Hey, that was a bit of orright while it lasted. Then they did away altogether with the gas pumpers, and removed the discount.

With the self-serve checkouts today, they've not even bothered with the discount strategy, and I worry that a lot of young people soon won't even have the opportunity to have a job being a "checkout chick" or the male equivalent.

This is no lie....pulled into independent servo up the road the other day, just around the corner from the Brasserie de Hogshead. JUst opened the cap and about to grab pump handle, bloke comes up and asks me how much I want. Was that gobsmacked nearly couldn't answer him, and it felt downright weird letting him fill the car for me. AMAZING STORIES!!!

 

[manticle]

There’s a few stores down here that fill for you but a lot of things down here remind me of 1980.

 

[Crusty]

There’s a few stores down here that fill for you but a lot of things down here remind me of 1980.

That's the beauty of it mate & hold it close.
Unlike the rest of the Mainland **** hole that we live in.

 

[manticle]

I like it

 

[nosco]

Universal basic income is the way of the future anyway. How are you going to re skill a train driver in his fifty's after his train becomes autonomous? Train drivers gotta eat to.
http://www.news.com.au/technology/i...s/news-story/7ae91901c856ca697ed6b30e18cbba00

Truck drivers too. They say the driverless car is about saftey on the roads but i highly doubt that.

I worked for BigW (Woolworths) for 10 years and left totally demoralised. Never in words but you are always reminded that you are last compared to profit, customer's, merchandising, etc.

My wife still works there. They are no longer signing contracts. Any new staff are casual. They have been gradually cutting staff for a long time now. They tried to cut my wifes hours when i had to swap my afternoons with her days. The union stepped in but her store manager has been a prick ever since. Im very glad to be out of that hell hole.

 

[malt junkie]

In NSW the signaling for the trains is now 95% automated ( the entire time table and can still run without intervention up to 20mins late), there used to be local signal boxes everywhere employing at least 2 people a shift, they were all centralised and then automated hundreds of jobs gone never to return.

 

[wide eyed and legless]

In NSW the signaling for the trains is now 95% automated ( the entire time table and can still run without intervention up to 20mins late), there used to be local signal boxes everywhere employing at least 2 people a shift, they were all centralised and then automated hundreds of jobs gone never to return.

Thats progress, what amazes me the most is, all the jobs that are lost employment figures remain fairly constant. That is the way of life now, one can't take any jobs for granted but there always seem to be new opportunities to be taken up.

 

[wynnum1]

Thats progress, what amazes me the most is, all the jobs that are lost employment figures remain fairly constant. That is the way of life now, one can't take any jobs for granted but there always seem to be new opportunities to be taken up.

Employment figures remain fairly constant because if you work one hour a week your employed would suggest a lot of unemployed are working very short hours aided by government to control these figures in the United States there was a major drop in unemployment when they had a census.

 

[madpierre06]

Employment figures remain fairly constant because if you work one hour a week your employed would suggest a lot of unemployed are working very short hours aided by government to control these figures in the United States there was a major drop in unemployment when they had a census.

Makes you wonder where they'll go from here..I can remember a time when you were classified as unemployed if you worked under about 16 hours a fortnight. Got to keep moving those goalposts in order to get the result we need to keep the general populace happy. Factor in the second job/taxation trick of paying full tax on your second job, so if you're even only getting maybe 20 hours a week between two jobs, the second one is gonna get taxed hard. That you'll get some back at tax time is irrelevant when those dollars are needed right then and there to feed and pay bills etc.

 

[zoigl]

That's the beauty of it mate & hold it close.
Unlike the rest of the Mainland **** hole that we live in.

Try the local butcher here in Maclean opposite SPAR, straight out of the 1950's with red gum stump and all! Brilliant hung steak and lamb, and real sausages.

 

[Ducatiboy stu]

In NSW the signaling for the trains is now 95% automated ( the entire time table and can still run without intervention up to 20mins late), there used to be local signal boxes everywhere employing at least 2 people a shift, they were all centralised and then automated hundreds of jobs gone never to return.

I worked for the Railways for 18yrs in Comms. Each Signal box essentially employed 4 people - 3 x 8hr +1 Relief/weekends/leave. It was a slow and gradual transition over the years and a lot of signalman took the old DCM.

It makes sense to centralise signalling. You basically had a lot of blokes sitting in signal box's doing SFA for most of the shift. In fact it was one of the most BORING jobs you could get. Sitting there for 8 hrs waiting on a train every 1-2hrs ( sometimes longer ). Different in the city of course.

Not only that but signal box's where high maintenance ( and old )and you had a small army of signal electricians, fitters, tech ( like me ) etc that went around looking after them.

Between Newcastle and the border north and west to Moree there are no signal box's left, it is all controlled from Broadmeadow. Same south. From Syndey to Albury there is only 1 signal box at Junee ( which is actually a centralised train control center )

I was part of a lot of those upgrades and closing of signal box's. Did I shed a tear, yes I did, but it was progress, and the wages bill to keep all those smaller box's open was just insane

 

[Feldon]

Here in Victoria up until the 70s a lot of the railway signalmen in country areas outside Melbourne worked split *****. Up at dawn to pull the levers for the morning up passenger trains, then clock off until the afternoon down passenger trains ran through. In between they'd do some maintenance work on the pulleys and rods that activated the signal arms of the old semaphore home and distant signals, and top up the kero in the signal lanterns. And they might work through if a goods train stopped by to shunt a GY of briquettes into the local siding.

Have to wonder whether it was progress to shut this system down and replace it with searchlight signals centrally controlled from Melb. The cost of a signalman was small compared to the expense of the new system and there is no one local if a problem occurs. And having worked on the footplate it was often much easier to sight a semaphore signal than a searchlight.

 

[Ducatiboy stu]

Have to wonder whether it was progress to shut this system down and replace it with searchlight signals centrally controlled from Melb. The cost of a signalman was small compared to the expense of the new system and there is no one local if a problem occurs. And having worked on the footplate it was often much easier to sight a semaphore signal than a searchlight.

Short term...yes...long term....no. Especially when considering that a centralised signaling system is designed for a 20+yr lifespan. And most are automatic signal and all the signaler does now is remotely change points

 

[Crusty]

Try the local butcher here in Maclean opposite SPAR, straight out of the 1950's with red gum stump and all! Brilliant hung steak and lamb, and real sausages.

Old Sid Jones butchery.
Great meat & awesome family.

 

[malt junkie]

Short term...yes...long term....no. Especially when considering that a centralised signaling system is designed for a 20+yr lifespan. And most are automatic signal and all the signaler does now is remotely change points

In Sydney they don't even do that; ATRICS (automated train routing indicating control system) does it all (big FO Computer). Only time the signaler does something is for exchange cars or break down, setup a work site or other emergency working. Even major track work is programed in, months in advance. Does make you wonder how they're going to go about training the next train controllers, because a signaler was always a train controller in training.

 

[neal32]

Tell me again why stuff is so expensive and why all those jobs went overseas.

I'll have a crack. Cause of Neoliberal western governments (In Australia, Labor introduced it and the coalition supercharged it) and ironically, the subsequent weakening of the unions.

Stuff is so expensive because since the above, peoples wages have been stagnant and people are getting paid, according to a graph I saw a couple of days ago, 2.4x less then what you would be getting if the collective consciousness of Australia realized that bashing unions is the antithesis to what they should've be doing all along.

When Turdbull says to Vietnam to embrace 'Free and fair trade', I hear 'Let Australian consumers pay less on the products you produce for $1 a day. But it's cool cause we will be sending you all the manufacturing jobs of Australians except we'll pay you even less then we paid them! To sweeten the deal we'll provide foreign aid which if you worked it out would be a tenth of the value you provide us'

Look, Neoliberalism is great for the slave owners of the world but I'm pretty sure there are no undercover billionaires on aussiehomebrewer.com so if you support Labor or *shudders* the coalition, please do some research. plz.

• To the youth of America, I say, beware of being trivialized by the commercial culture that tempts you daily. I hear you saying often that you're not turned on to politics. The lessons of history are clear and portentous. If you do not turn on to politics, politics will turn on you. - Ralph Nader

Also my views are not influenced by my personal position. I'm actually in a far better situation then most, I've only ever had my own money, my ex-wife has a big chunk of it, my parents have never helped me financially and even now I have a house(40% paid off) and I'm Gen Y!

Sources : http://peoplesdemocracy.in/2017/0528_pd/neoliberalism-and-trade-unions-i
: Podcasts
: Google
: History

 

[Ducatiboy stu]

In Sydney they don't even do that; ATRICS (automated train routing indicating control system) does it all (big FO Computer). Only time the signaler does something is for exchange cars or break down, setup a work site or other emergency working. Even major track work is programed in, months in advance. Does make you wonder how they're going to go about training the next train controllers, because a signaler was always a train controller in training.

Yep. CBI ( Computer Based Interlocking ) has changed everything

Liverpool section was the first CBI installed and working in NSW...many years ago now

 

[good4whatAlesU]

Truck drivers too. They say the driverless car is about saftey on the roads but i highly doubt that.

They are no longer signing contracts. Any new staff are casual. They have been gradually cutting staff for a long time now. They tried to cut my wifes hours when i had to swap my afternoons with her days. The union stepped in but her store manager has been a prick ever since. Im very glad to be out of that hell hole.

.. same in the Government now too. Gone are the days of permanency. It's short contracts, casuals and 24 hour notice they can fire you. "Don't like it? Well there's the door we'll get some graduate or PhD student and flog them for less" ...

The bloke at the desk next to me has done 30 years as a 'Casual" and they still won't give him more than a 3 month contract, disgraceful.

 

[Feldon]

Short term...yes...long term....no. Especially when considering that a centralised signaling system is designed for a 20+yr lifespan. And most are automatic signal and all the signaler does now is remotely change points

Even long term would have been cheaper, much cheaper. The system that replaced local staffing might have had a 20 year life span, but I bet it was upgraded long before that time period expired. That's the problem when any operation hands its core business over to the IT industry. You get screwed. Upgrades become necessary for all sorts of real and imagined reasons. Remember Y2K. Telstra spent over a billion to become Y2K compliant. The four major banks spent half a billion each. Qld Railways would have spent a proportionate amount. And all the time the old manual system of live country signalmen, with proven safety and efficiency over a hundred years both here and overseas, was always Y2K compliant, and would be resistant to modern day hacking too.

This quest for 'progress' is often a false crusade. Here in Melbourne various state govts have spent billions over the past 15-20 years on automated metro ticketing systems, all of which are ******. The public transport users association did an economic analysis that found it would have been hugely cheaper simply to go back and employ ticketing staff at every suburban station, as it was for a century before political leaders (from both sides) sought to kill the unions by finding progressive ways to retrench their members, and earn kickbacks from corrupt IT firms.

 

[wide eyed and legless]

Employment figures remain fairly constant because if you work one hour a week your employed would suggest a lot of unemployed are working very short hours aided by government to control these figures in the United States there was a major drop in unemployment when they had a census.

The won't work under any circumstances brigade eliminates those working whatever the minimum hours are, plus you have the cash in hand workers who still collect benefits.